dst

Pretty early in development of my Ping Pong Clock I came up with the idea of automatic Daylight Saving Time compensation. It’s an interesting feature, but it’s a luxury and so I figured I could add it as a future improvement. Now’s the time and I’m reporting back on what I’ve learned and how you can add this to your own projects.

There’s two things to think about before adding this feature. Is it worth the effort and does it make the clock more confusing rather than easier to use?

As to the latter, if you are responsible for setting the time initially but you are not responsible for resetting the clock when we fall back or spring forward will it cause confusion? Perhaps initially, but the battery-backed RTC that I used in my project should mean that you set it once and never have to reset it again. The one exception is DST and that’s what I’m compensating for.

Whether it is worth it or not is difficult to answer until after the fact. You should take into consideration that the DST rules are not set in stone, they change from time to time. Add to that the fact that not all parts of the world observe the practice. This means that not only do you need to implement the compensation, but you should add a method of switching it on and off as well as changing the rules for when it is observed.

Join me after the break to learn the method and code I use to make time adjustments automatically twice a year.